Chapter Eleven
Drew shot upright in the middle of his bed, covered in a cold sweat. He took a minute to orient himself. What had woken him? Something wasn’t right.
Cassie.
The bed was empty. Had she left? No. The smell of fresh ground coffee teased his nose. That must be what woke him.
A glance at the clock revealed it was six in the morning. Last thing he remembered, he’d offered to buy her a dog, which had somehow turned into another round of long hot sex. Before falling asleep, she’d let him off the hook about the pet. “It’s a sweet idea.” She’d given a sleepy yawn. “But no. I’m not home enough to have a puppy yet.”
Drew nodded, both relieved she’d given him an out and strangely disappointed. He’d like to have seen her glow with happiness when she got something she’d always wanted. Cassie’s eyes had fluttered closed and her breathing soon evened out. Drew enjoyed the view until sleep overtook him as well.
A new experience for him. Sleep didn’t usually come easily, and never when a woman was involved. He’d even slept through the night.
Curious about where she was, Drew crawled out of bed, and pulled on a pair of jeans. He was pulling a T-shirt over his head as he walked out of the room when he spotted her, and froze.
Damn, what a sight. He didn’t give a shit if it was cliché. One glimpse of Cassie in nothing but his white button-down shirt, and every thought left his brain along with the blood, which deserted his head for other parts of his body.
He must’ve choked or something, because she glanced over. “Morning.” She smiled and held up a mug of coffee. “Want some?”
Drew nodded, still trying to make his vocal chords operate. As he moved forward into the room, a stack of papers on one of the end tables in his living room caught his eye, and his stomach dropped straight to the bottom of his feet as a string of swear words went off like bombs in his brain.
Like a colossal, sex-obsessed dumbass, he hadn’t hidden all traces of his assignment before he’d left for work yesterday morning. Max had provided his analysis of Data Minds’ financials in paper form, “off the grid” as it wasn’t official, and he’d left it in plain view for her to stumble across. Even rookies wouldn’t have made that mistake.
He quickly glanced in Cassie’s direction. She hadn’t acted suspicious. That was something. Finding her distracted in the kitchen, he started toward the living room, intending to pull a stack of magazines on top of the evidence of his stupidity.
“I like your apartment,” Cassie called out to him.
Drew paused mid-step, unsure what to do. For a trained FBI agent, he was certainly flubbing this up in spectacular fashion. Kids playing at being spies had more finesse than he did at this moment. “Thanks,” he called back.
If she’d already seen the papers, covering them up would look worse. There was nothing about the FBI in those papers, or anything else to tip her off about the investigation. Most people who stumbled across the pile would probably think he was simply being uber-thorough about getting to know his new employer.
But Cassie wasn’t most people. He prayed to every higher power in the universe that she hadn’t seen those while she’d been puttering around his apartment without him. Now, he just had to keep her out of the living room.
Drew changed direction and headed toward the kitchen, then sat down at the small round table in his kitchenette. Cassie brought over a mug of steaming black coffee, but not even the anticipation of caffeine could break through his anxiety.
She leaned over and gave him a sweet kiss, and he could smell himself on her skin. Okay, that might distract him.
“You have a great layout.” She nodded around the room. “And the combination of traditional and modern is lovely.”
His apartment was an open floor plan with the living room, small dining area, and kitchen all flowing together. He liked his place for the same reasons, so the fact she appreciated it, too, would’ve made him smile. If he could concentrate.
She pulled a chair close to his and sat. Her jasmine scent floated around him, and his shirt parted to reveal long, lean legs. Legs which had been wrapped around him just last night while she’d begged…
Hell. Drew resisted dragging a hand through his hair. He should’ve waited until the investigation was over before taking things to this level.
Through sheer force of will, he dragged his gaze up her body to find her watching him closely. What had she said? Oh yeah, the apartment. “I like it.”
He grimaced at the lame response.
She hid a smile behind her cup of coffee, but he still caught it. “What?” he asked.
She gave a little shrug as she lowered her mug. “Like what you see?”
Despite the sassy words, Drew couldn’t miss the way she watched him closely. With suspicion or self-doubt? Either way, play it cool. “You know I do.” The words came out low and rough.
Her shoulders dropped a fraction, and her smile widened. “Good.” Another swallow. “But we’ll have to wait.”
Why? He stared back, waiting for her to get to the reason.
“I have to get home and change before we go to work.”
Work. The real world. Damn, he’d rather stay in bed and recreate the fantasy they’d discovered together last night. So would she, if the fire in her gaze was anything to go by.
Bad idea, Kerrigan.
Wasn’t the definition of insanity to repeat the same mistakes while hoping for a different outcome?
“Before I change into something decent and head out, can I talk to you about a work-related issue?” she asked.
Work? Where was she going with this? Apprehension tightened in his chest. “Sure.”
She took a deep breath and put her cup on the table. “I’ve stumbled across something fishy. Several things, actually.”
Drew did his best to appear appropriately confused and concerned while hiding the tidal wave of panic slamming through him. “Fishy?”
She nodded slowly, never taking her gaze off him. “I found some odd code in the system a while back. Remember that weird code I discovered at work that I was sure I didn’t write?”
He tried not to jerk in reaction. He’d gone back and removed that code.
Oblivious of his panic, she continued. “Well, it’s gone now, but I’ve found a few other things and have been keeping track of different anomalies. Things that shouldn’t be there. At first I thought it was bad code, but now I’m convinced something bigger, and possibly illegal, is going on.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, as if someone might hear them. “I think we’re being hacked.”
Drew swallowed. He was in deep shit. What had started as the hottest night of his life just took a turn for the seriously messed up.
“Are you sure?” Fuck. That’s the best he could do? As soon as this op was over, he’d take acting classes. Then again, they might never allow him undercover again.
She frowned. “I wouldn’t be asking for help if I weren’t sure.”
He nodded and did his no comment thing.
Luckily, she seemed to take it as him saying he believed her, because she continued. “I’m on the trail of whoever it is, but I could use a second set of eyes.”
Drew held up both hands. “Of course. I’m happy to help.”
Cassie eyed him closely for a second—and there went the bug and microscope effect—but then she smiled. “Great,” she finally murmured.
She stood and kissed him. Brief and sweet, and not enough. He stilled under the touch.
“I’d better go get dressed.”
Drew’s body vehemently protested as she deposited her mug in the sink and left the room. Meanwhile, his brain churned over the problem.
It was only a matter of time before she figured out the person hacking into Data Minds was him. If she hadn’t already.
…
Cassie waved at Drew as the cab pulled away from the curb. She should be floating around on cloud ten, or wherever people floated, given they’d shared the hottest night of her life. Instead, all she could think about was the stack of papers she’d seen at Drew’s.
She’d been hugging herself, and just looking around—enjoying pictures of him with his mother, and one with his dog, Rustbucket. She found a military medal in a fancy glass case on the wall and admired it, trying to picture him during his military days. She wasn’t trying to snoop, not really, but it was just…there.
At first, she’d figured the stack of papers was research from when he was interviewing with Data Minds. That could still be a plausible explanation, except the “research” came across as completely off to her. Too thorough, though she could see Drew taking due diligence to a whole new level.
Warning bells had chimed in her head, regardless, and she didn’t know what the hell to think. The math wasn’t adding up in his favor—the code she’d found in the system combined with what she saw in his apartment and Drew’s constant questions at work could all be total coincidence. Taken separately, each was innocuous. For once in her life, she hoped two plus two plus two added up to zero. Zero things wrong.
“What was that?” the cabbie broke into her thoughts.
“Nothing,” she muttered.
She’d deliberately mentioned the weird things she’d been seeing in their systems, hoping to get a reaction. When she had, she watched him. Carefully. He didn’t even flinch. In fact, he gave her a solid show of being shocked and concerned. Or at least his stoic version of those emotions.
While that would reassure a normal person, Cassie’s gut didn’t unclench. Really bad sign. She’d expected a request for proof, or even a protest she couldn’t be right, but that’s not what she got. New York passed by her window in a blur of buildings and people as she tried to make all the puzzle pieces fit together.
At the same time, she couldn’t make her head or heart wrap around Drew doing something wrong. She’d finally found a decent guy whose brains turned her on and who managed to make her world tilt on its axis when he touched her. He had too much integrity to not perform as a stellar employee—her gut also told her that was true.
“Make up your mind,” she muttered. Then pinched the bridge of her nose as she realized she was talking to her gut like it might talk back.
With a deep breath, she sat up straighter. Catalog both sides, she told herself. Mentally she ticked everything off. He was a fantastic analyst and one who shared credit when it was due. Yes, he stepped on her toes and sometimes asked a lot of nosy questions. Okay, daily. But being the other smartest person in the room, she got why that happened. The man had wanted to buy her a dog, for heaven’s sake, and he loved his mother. Yes, he’d done research on the Data Minds financial situation, but nothing in the code she’d found remotely pointed back to Drew.
Decision made. She’d give Drew the benefit of the doubt.
So why didn’t she feel better? What she needed to do was figure out the coding issues. “Can we go a little faster?” she asked the cabbie.
She was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of what she’d found at work.
…
“Kerrigan, you want to explain what the fuck you think you’re doing?”
Drew leaned back in his chair as his director thundered over the screen. “Excuse me, but I—”
“This isn’t a dating show, son. This is an op. A serious investigation into a potential cyber crime.”
Hell. That’s the only place he had to go. He was screwed. No pun or innuendo intended. He could feel the stares of his team drilling into the back of his head even now.
“You didn’t think we knew?” his director continued. “Of course we’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
Drew refused to show any emotion or reaction as he searched through every file in his brain for a way out of this mess.
His director continued. “I gave you this assignment on the understanding that it was a trial run. Can’t say I’m all that impressed so far.”
Drew cringed inwardly.
“You need to get your head out of your pants and back in the game. Now.”
An idea struck. Bingo.
“I am in the game. Getting close to Cassie Howard is the best way to solve this case.”
The man crossed his arms and sneered. “There’s close, and then there’s sleeping with the woman.”
Drew steepled his fingers in a deliberate display of overconfidence. “I didn’t plan for that, but it’s what had to be done.”
He received a skeptically raised eyebrow for his efforts. “You’re saying that the sex is part of your undercover work?”
He wouldn’t lie, but he could dance around the issue. “I’m saying that if we want this op to be successful, Cassie is the key.”
“You’ll look me in the eye and tell me you have zero feelings for the woman?”
He couldn’t do that, either. “She trusts me now. We’re finally making progress. Just this morning she told me she’s looking into something she stumbled on in the Data Minds systems. She wants my help to track it down.”
“Is it possible she stumbled on your hacking?”
Drew spread his hands out and shrugged. “Potentially. In which case, I can cover things up. I think it’s more likely that she’s on the trail of whoever is the true perp in this case.”
“So now you don’t think the Howard woman is involved?”
“My opinion is no. The team was discussing bringing her into the case to help.”
The director raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Your opinion. Do you have proof she’s not our man?”
“I have zero evidence against her personally.”
“Not the same. For now, she remains suspect number one. You prove to me it’s not her, then we discuss bringing her on.”
Drew clenched his teeth. “Yes, sir.”
They hung up the call and he turned to face his team. “I still think she’s innocent, and someone else at the company is behind this. Now we need to prove it. Today.”
He received nods of agreement.
Right. Drew did some mental calculations and quickly rearranged his entire day.
Up till now, he’d kept his hacking within the Data Minds systems limited to nights from his home when he could see no one else was online, but now he had no choice but to spend the day scouring the system for anything that could point to Cassie.
Or away from her, he hoped to God.